Bulge Buster Tips?

Been having trouble with rounds chambering in my wad gun. I just started shooting lead loads and thought the problem was OAL, which was a touch long. Come to find out the mixed brass I've been buying up has a lot of bulged cases. The brass I started with was all new or came from BE shooters.

So I bought a Bulge Buster. Wondering if there is anything anyone would suggest other than running my brass through it. I read you can put live rounds through, but I'd like to avoid that. 

Also, shooting my brass out of a 1911, how often should I expect this bulging? Should I plan to run my brass through every season?

Thanks!

If you have bulged 45 ACP brass it was probably shot through a Glock.

Bill

When I add new brass to my inventory, I use the Bulge Buster on it one time.  As long as I only use that brass in my bullseye gun chambers, I don't find a need to do it again.  If it is difficult to run through the Bulge Buster or I see the "Glock smile", that piece of brass is removed from my inventory.

YMMV.

I had to look up "Glock Smile".

Oh look another reason not to buy Glocks lol.

I use the buster to uniform my rim sizes which will grow over time/use

I've gone through my loaded lead rounds, but never found a Glock smile. They have been wet tumbled with SS pins and resized already. Would that erase it?

Next step is running all my empty brass through. I'll look for Glock smiles on those.

Soupy44 wrote:I've gone through my loaded lead rounds, but never found a Glock smile. They have been wet tumbled with SS pins and resized already. Would that erase it?

Next step is running all my empty brass through. I'll look for Glock smiles on those.

No, wet tumbling would not eliminate the "Glock smile".  The lack of support would create a pronounced bulge, and probably a crease (the "smile" shown in photos).  The Bulge Buster setup can not repair that degree of deformation.  But it does uniformly size straight walled cartridges pretty well.  And apparently help with rim sizing, which I'd never considered.  I only use it on brass that hasn't gone through my bullseye chambers or brass that I'm unsure of.  But that's just my routine.

The Glock “smile” is most prevalent in 40 S&W brass. Less common in 45 ACP and 9mm.

Call me overly cautious buy I never use "once fired or range brass".  All of my brass starts out as new and is shot only in my guns.  It can only take just that one time reloading and firing brass of an unknown source to really ruin your day.  I keep my brass seperated by headstamp and maintain accurate records on the number of times it gets loaded.  Any visible defect in any piece of brass and it gets tossed into my junk brass box for sale as scrap to the local recycle center. I know that the loads we as Bullseye shooters load is relatively speaking are a low pressure load but when the gun goes boom on a suspect piece of brass it is to late.  The cost to buy new brass far out weighs the cost of a new gun or the loss of a body part just for trying to save a few pennies.  Just my two cents.  (Pun intended! LOL)

Allen Barnett wrote:Call me overly cautious buy I never use "once fired or range brass".  All of my brass starts out as new and is shot only in my guns.  It can only take just that one time reloading and firing brass of an unknown source to really ruin your day.  I keep my brass seperated by headstamp and maintain accurate records on the number of times it gets loaded.  Any visible defect in any piece of brass and it gets tossed into my junk brass box for sale as scrap to the local recycle center. I know that the loads we as Bullseye shooters load is relatively speaking are a low pressure load but when the gun goes boom on a suspect piece of brass it is to late.  The cost to buy new brass far out weighs the cost of a new gun or the loss of a body part just for trying to save a few pennies.  Just my two cents.  (Pun intended! LOL)

+1

There have been many times that I have left my empty cases at the range because I felt that they should no longer be reloaded.  How many time have others done the same?  Not my thing.

Jim

So I've gone through all my loaded jacketed ammo and didn't find any Glock Smiles.  Bulge busted some, but a tiny percentage, maybe 1-3 out of every 100, and I was being very picky.

I've gone through a sample of about 200 of the 3-4k empty brass I have and no Glock Smiles.  I plan to take your advice DanQ and I'll bulge bust everything I have that's empty.

Should I resize before bulge busting?  Does that matter at all?  

Thanks!

Soupy44 wrote:So I've gone through all my loaded jacketed ammo and didn't find any Glock Smiles.  Bulge busted some, but a tiny percentage, maybe 1-3 out of every 100, and I was being very picky.

I've gone through a sample of about 200 of the 3-4k empty brass I have and no Glock Smiles.  I plan to take your advice DanQ and I'll bulge bust everything I have that's empty.

Should I resize before bulge busting?  Does that matter at all?  

Thanks!

I pretty much toss anything that looks questionable, and spot check with the Bulge Buster.  If they run through smoothly after being fired from one of my bullseye guns I continue to use them.  When it takes some force, I remove that piece of brass from my inventory.

I don't size beforehand.  I just run them through the progressive after I clean and spot check.

Bulge busting is a big pain in the ,,,,,,,  It does go easier if you size and decap first.

Best and easiest way to use a bulge buster die is with the Lee APP. Do it one time with unknown brass, after that use a Martindale gauge for future reloads, to check for oversized rims etc. works great and has pretty much completely done away with ammo alibis with 45ACP. Easy peasy!

Allen Barnett wrote:Call me overly cautious buy I never use "once fired or range brass".  All of my brass starts out as new and is shot only in my guns.  It can only take just that one time reloading and firing brass of an unknown source to really ruin your day.  I keep my brass seperated by headstamp and maintain accurate records on the number of times it gets loaded.  Any visible defect in any piece of brass and it gets tossed into my junk brass box for sale as scrap to the local recycle center. I know that the loads we as Bullseye shooters load is relatively speaking are a low pressure load but when the gun goes boom on a suspect piece of brass it is to late.  The cost to buy new brass far out weighs the cost of a new gun or the loss of a body part just for trying to save a few pennies.  Just my two cents.  (Pun intended! LOL)

Well, at least you HOPE you dont borrow some 45 super reloads from the neighbor that have the "glock smile" on them.

Allen Barnett wrote:Call me overly cautious buy I never use "once fired or range brass".  All of my brass starts out as new and is shot only in my guns.  It can only take just that one time reloading and firing brass of an unknown source to really ruin your day.  I keep my brass seperated by headstamp and maintain accurate records on the number of times it gets loaded.  Any visible defect in any piece of brass and it gets tossed into my junk brass box for sale as scrap to the local recycle center. I know that the loads we as Bullseye shooters load is relatively speaking are a low pressure load but when the gun goes boom on a suspect piece of brass it is to late.  The cost to buy new brass far out weighs the cost of a new gun or the loss of a body part just for trying to save a few pennies.  Just my two cents.  (Pun intended! LOL)

Then there are some of us who use brass until it cracks and haven't had any troubles over the years!

After several years of using bulge buster setups in single stage presses I  came to the conclusion that I would be better serve by spending the stupid amount to get a roll sizer.

Busting .40 & .45 was boring, 9mm was painful.
Rolling is boring but quick

DA/SA wrote:

FWIW, This brass has plastic yield, it has stretched beyond the elastic limit of the material. Simply resizing won’t correct for the loss of strength. You could likely do it once and reuse the brass in a different supported chamber but to repetitively reuse in a grok would be foolishly asking for trouble. Just sayin…

if you take a bulged case and go thru all your preparation from cleaning thru whatever sizing process you use, it's still a weakened case,  At the end of the processing, if you look at the web area wiyh a good piece of glass, you'll prolly see that it's got a frosted appearance.  Frosted cake is good, frosted brass has micro fractures that will never be fixed.

ok what is the reason for the glock smile, is the brass happy?

I think one of the main theories is that the chamber bottom leaves more of the brass unsupported.
This leaves more of the web area open to distort (plus chambers leaning towards the max dim for reliability).

My pcc, being a straight blow-back firearm, pretty much trashes any case that goes thru it.
My .380 on the other hand gives the brass a beer belly in the web area that I don't think would allow the case to enter a sizing die.

What makes you think you have a bulge issue? Have you measured exactly where the size issue is? Not all size dies are created equal nor are all chambers! 
When using the B/B do you have to add an additional step?
You may find that by just turning your size die in an additional 1/16th, 1/8th, 1/4 turn to size the very last few thousandths to get ALL cases to chamber!
I found this to be true when sizing several hundred .223's. so that ALL cases fit ALL chambers! (Bumping shoulder back .002")

All the best i the new year,

The Glock bulged case is upside down. It’s not a smile, it’s a frown.